


Spirit Quest

by Bacner



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU - Fantasy, Drake - Freeform, F/M, Gen, HuntingBird, Lycanthropes, Ogre, Sylph - Freeform, dragon turtle, forest, genie-kin, lake, self discovery, spirit quest, suli
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:40:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6759850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across the multiverse, Lincoln Campbell runs into Kara Palamas on the same spirit quest...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there was a sylph (i.e. a distant descendant of the djinn of air), called Lincoln Camp-bell, who was in love with Daisy Johnson, an up and coming heroine, who herself was an oread (i.e. a distant descendant of the shaitan of earth), to wit, a fellow genie-kin on top of everything else. Lincoln himself was up and coming as a hero in the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D., but somehow he still felt over-whelmed and all in Daisy’s shadow and her reputation. Of course, he was also in the shadow of her best friend and partner, ‘Mack’ Mackenzie, but given the man’s respective size, everyone was in his shadow – literally, especially when he walked between them and the sun precisely for this purpose (it annoyed the Hell out of Mack, but everyone, especially Daisy and the FitzSimmons, loved him for this, so yeah, this was how it went). 

However, Mack and his size was one thing, and Daisy’s own reputation, especially compared to Lin-coln’s, was another. Lincoln felt that he needed to raise his own XP level somehow or other, and so he decided to do it in a traditional, Li Shi, way – he went onto a solo…no, not quite a quest, but more like a contemplation/meditation mission/undertaking/enterprise, etc., to accomplish just that. This was what the genie-kin of Li Shi did, after all, before Jiaying had went all crazy and tried to destroy the rest of the world. 

Daisy was not very happy about this: she was all about S.H.I.E.L.D. and all about the team (and the greater good, though this was more of Melinda May’s and Phil Coulson’s thing instead), and the idea of a solo mission wasn’t really rubbing right with her, but it was Lincoln’s call, so he made it and went…with the support of his friends (sort of), Lance Hunter and Bobbi Morse. 

(“Do you think this is a good idea?” Bobbi asked Lance later, when Lincoln had left.

“Yes,” Lance replied. “Lincoln needs to figure out where he fits in this team in his own right, rather than riding Daisy’s coat-tails and if he wants to fit-in the first place. You can be a good person and not be a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., you know?”

“And if he doesn’t? What then?”

Lance did not answer Bobbi, and she did not press him.)

…But Lincoln did not know about the discussion that went between the two members of ‘HuntingBird’ as described above. He went to the lake that he knew was beneficial for such meditative quests-visions situations, and looked around. 

The lake was there, as opaque and mysterious as before, hiding the mysteries of life and death and everything else in its’ depths. Both bird and beast seemed to shun it, though it did not apply to mosquitoes that seemed to be happy to taste even the blood of genie-kin for their future young (mosquitoes reproduce by laying eggs across the multiverse, BTW), or to Kara ‘Lynn’ Palamas, who had already set her tent some distance away from him, and was currently looking at him with some sort of minor superiority, (not unlike that of Bobbi Morse, but not even Lincoln was stupid enough to compare the two – there was some bad blood between the two). 

“What are you doing here?” Lincoln said, trying to sound polite, when dealing with a potential hostile. Okay, Kara was not ‘potentially hostile’, just was just outright unfriendly, period.

“I am a suli,” Kara said flatly, with the kind of flatness that suggested that she was not far away from either breaking into tears, or breaking someone into pieces, or both. “The blood of the jann flows through my veins, just as the blood of the djinn flows through yours. Deal with it.”

“I thought that you didn’t believe in it, this sort of thing,” Lincoln said after a while.

“No, that’s your girlfriend, Daisy of the pleasantly pear shape,” Kara replied with a sniff. “Bobbi is more of the hourglass, with a lot of sand in it.”

“And Grant?” Lincoln said, trying to deflate Kara in retaliation for Daisy’s ‘pleasantly pear shape’, (she was not! Really!)

“Grant is Grant,” Kara shrugged, not looking much flapped by Lincoln’s question. “He isn’t perfect. He has rescued me from Whitehall and his people when the others washed their hands off me. He is an ifreet. He has fire in his veins. Your people do not like him. So what? I do not like you people either. Now, are you going to leave or stay and be eaten? It’s all the same to me.”

Lincoln shook his head. Phil Coulson and his team did not like Grant Ward, period, and treated Kara barely better, but if Grant just took the harassment as his due and plowed on ahead, Kara did not and would give as good as she could right back, something that made her even more unpopular with Phil Coulson and his team. Despite their initial sympathy, however tentative, nowadays S.H.I.E.L.D. just presumed that Grant and Kara deserved each other, the end for both of them. Well, not the literal end, since both of them were quite alive and all, but still. You got the point. Lincoln certainly did. He stopped talking to Kara, and went and set his own tent. It was slightly fancier than Kara’s was, because it was more traditional, (in Li Shi’s meaning of the word), but not by much. 

Not unlike Kara, again, Lincoln pulled out a brazier, the incense, the other meditative materials…and yes, he had subconsciously imitated Kara and set his tent further away from the edge of the lake than he initially planned to. Yes, he was connected to the element of air, not of water, but still, the lake was supposed to be the point here…sort of, plus Kara wasn’t Daisy or Jiaying, she wasn’t interested in him, she wasn’t giving him any ques, and she wasn’t friendly to him either, so he really shouldn’t be emu-lating her, but he couldn’t help it – it was the leftover from his lessons with Jiaying…

To make things either worse or more appropriate for Lincoln’s plan, which was not so much derailed as unbalanced, it began to rain. The tents – both his and Kara’s – were waterproof, but Lincoln didn’t re-ally like rain even in the city, let alone in a sylvan wilderness, so he…grinned and borne it, so to speak.

This WAS what mystical quests were for, after all.

* * *

It was slightly embarrassing, but the rhythmic pounding of the rain, the sight of it falling down from the skies, from the trees, from the sides and entrance of the tent and forming rivulets and streams that went down into the lake had lulled Lincoln to sleep – somewhat. When he had awakened, the rain has stopped, the sun was shining, however tentatively, and Kara was gone, having gone somewhere else – most likely for a walk in the woods, since her tent and the rest of her belongings were there.

Lincoln shook his head. Grant was probably bad, and Kara wasn’t any better, and the two of them were a package deal and happy with it, and they generally avoided S.H.I.E.L.D. nowadays, so why was he being bothered by this? Avoidance was probably the best option for both sides involved now-

Kara suddenly came out of the forest, being chased by some sort of an ogre. As far as giants went, the ogres were a degenerate and varied bunch; this one was covered in long, matted fur, and possessed stunted legs and massive, powerful arms, like some sort of an ape. Moreover, he was running on all fours, and trying to smash Kara with his powerful fists rather than anything else. 

Lincoln frowned. Kara was a competent and powerful warrior, really- He tackled her out of the way just as the ogre was upon her, and the ogre’s attack had missed. The two of them rolled away, but Lincoln got onto his feet first, and began to use his spells, (mostly the electric sort) to try to blast the ogre away.

However, an ogre is not just stupid, but also tough and resilient, and so, instead, he charged at Lincoln once more, and he would have bowled Lincoln over, if Kara had not pulled Lincoln out of the ogre’s charge, so the ogre went rushing by and into the lake. He stopped in the shallows, whirled around and roared a challenge at Lincoln and Kara – and it was when a huge head burst out of the lake, bit into the ogre, and shaking him around without too much effort, pulled the ogre into a watery grave.

“…This isn’t a drake,” Lincoln muttered, only dimly aware that he was hugging Kara. “Jiaying’s notes suggested that a drake was living here – a river drake, a sea drake…”

“No, it’s a dragon turtle,” Kara shook her head, ignoring the fact that she was hugging Lincoln back or that her hair was tickling his face and he did not mind. “It’s not in the same league as a true dragon, but no drake would, or will, tackle this giant either.”

“Of course,” Lincoln muttered crossly, “Jiaying had ‘creatively interpreted’ things yet again…” He stopped. Yes, Jiaying was a fraud, she made him participate in something worse than a fraud, but he did not have to let it guide the rest of his life. He could move on, and become some else, himself, his true self (just as Grant did with John Garrett, as Kara with her Hydra captivity, cough). And, for a start…

“I’m going to get rid of the dragon turtle, the way we were supposed to do in Li Shi,” he told Kara. “We’re not friends, but we’re here for the same purpose. Want to help?”

Moreover, Kara agreed.

And they did succeed – but this was another story. 

End


	2. Full Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More about 'team S.H.I.E.L.D.' in a fantasy setting.

_The Past…_

The Ringmaster bit down on her lip in thought, as she watched a pair of partygoers go through her carnival. On its own, this was not very unusual – this is what her carnival was for, anyhow – but the couple themselves were. 

…Well, no – the woman looked merely exotic, something that was unusual, but not very – the Ringmaster’s carnival had been in many lands, so merely exotic wasn’t good enough, she had plenty of those, especially among the acrobats – but the man was clearly unusual, a planetouched of some sort, probably a sylph, rather than an undine-

“Excuse me?” a cultured voice spoke next to the Ringmaster, startling her. The Ringmaster turned around, and saw a rather handsome-looking man (in her opinion); to a point that she almost forgot about the original couple, she had been watching, (subtly). They were going to the carnival’s resident fortune-teller, something that was not good – while the dratted half-elf was always differential and proper, it was just as obvious that he was busy with his own plans, and the Ringmaster did not like this…

“Are you Rosalind Price?” the man was continuing with his questions, seemingly oblivious of everything else.

“Call me Ringmaster – everybody does, these days,” the Ringmaster grimaced. “What do you want?”

“I was referred here by Kebo…”

Abruptly, the Ringmaster forgot her facetious fortune-teller and his problematic guests. “I’m listening,” she told her interlocutor. “What do you want?”

/ / /

_The Present…_

“You know, this would’ve been more fun, interesting and et cetera, if got Hunter and Morse to join us instead,” Daisy muttered to the FitzSimmons, as the entire team S.H.I.E.L.D. observed Melinda wobble around, as she did every full moon. “Somehow, they make anything more fun and exciting when they are involved.”

The FitzSimmons looked at each other, then at Mack, then at Coulson, and finally answered:

“Yes, true, but it was their turn for a night-off, so there!”

Daisy opened her mouth, closed it, and kept it closed.

“…People, come on!” Mack’s own patience burst. “Yes, we’re all tense because of Melinda’s condition. Yes, everyone feels Lincoln’s absence. Yes, there seems to be some problems between HuntingBird and the rest of us, but still? Is everything really that bad among all of us?”

“No,” the FitzSimmons answered in stereo, “it’s just that things are tense with Melinda in partic-ular regardless of her condition. A carnival is rumored to be in town, and Melinda is broody because it reminds her of her past-“

“Again it comes down to Grant,” Mack muttered. “Seriously, he may have slept with May few times, but-“

“It isn’t about this,” the aforementioned ifrit replied as he leaned next to a tree, looking flustered. “May is rather remembering the times when she worked as the face in a merchant caravan instead – hello, Melinda, I see that your curse is still being a pain: you look even tinier than you did before. I’m in time, it seems.”

There was a pause as Daisy walked over to their former friend, a metaphorical fire in her eyes. “You!” she began but didn’t finish, as several things happened at the same time: firstly, everyone else realized that things were just too quiet in their stretch of forest at night, second, Grant grabbed her and used his own innate spell-like ability to increase his size, twirling Daisy around just in time for (three) a very big boar to burst onto the scene, going straight for May. Fourth, then, was May squealing and jumping into the FitzSimmons’ waiting grasps, while fifth was Dai-sy blasting the second newcomer with her powers, throwing the boar into the bushes despite his bulk.

“Careful,” Grant told her, “that is Melinda’s legitimate ex-husband of all people!”

“Dr. Garner?” Daisy blinked as she remembered the well-mannered and soft-spoken scholar of a doctor. “But how come he is a lycanthrope…” She stopped as she, (and everyone else, really) just looked at Melinda, who – as the realization hit – looked even more embarrassed and miserable than even her usual on full moon nights. “Oh dear. He isn’t giving up on her, is he?”

“No,” Grant replied. 

“But May and Coulson-“

Daisy did not finish: Andrew Garner righted himself, saw Coulson, and charged. Coulson, who until then looked kind of lost himself, whirled around and fled even faster. This difference in speed made all the difference: Coulson was able to pass through the two trees before the FitzSimmons’ trap went off. Andrew was not.

“…This won’t hold him for long,” Grant commented conversationally, as he produced a couple of manacles. “He is too powerful.”

“…I remember these manacles,” Coulson looked askance at the big planetouched, (who had shrunk to his regular size, which was still big). “I remember the op with the slavers. It still doesn’t count.”

There was a creak as Andrew began to break loose. 

“…On the other hand,” Coulson finished in a much more normal and less maudlin, tone of voice. “This clearly isn’t about the past. Let’s worry about the present instead.”

“Good idea!” the FitzSimmons nodded, before exchanging a look of their own. “Grant, what did happen to Melinda’s ex…we mean, how did it happen?”

“That’s what I thought,” Grant replied to them. “Here is the thing. You remember Nature’s Scourge?..”

/ / /

_The next morning…_

The Ringmaster woke up at her usual time. It was early in the morning, but the caravan still needed to be set up. She grabbed her hat and jacket and exited the tent. Several people were waiting for her already, and none of them was looking very friendly.

“Face!” the Ringmaster replied with joviality that was almost genuine. “I mean Melinda! I see that you got back with your friend Grant Douglas-”

“Ms. Price?” an older man spoke instead.

“Call me the Ringmaster,” the woman instinctively replied.

“…Okay,” the man looked briefly thrown, but that was all. “Can you tell us about your interactions with Melinda’s ex-husband, Andrew Garner instead?”

_TBC?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both Melinda and Andrew are wereboar lycanthropes; but while Andrew looks big and scary, Melinda looks more like a small Vietnamese pot-bellied pig instead, something that she really hates because she is harmless in this shape. Also, she cannot control it.


	3. Amphisbaena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Kara and Lincoln.

"So, this is where the spirit quest has taken us?" Kara asked as Lincoln and her made their ways across the wilderness. "I mean yes, I'm a city girl, so I don't know much about wilderness, but still, this looks very wild to me."

"This is one of the places of power that the Council of Elders talked about before Li Shi fell," Lincoln confessed. "Now yeah, it may also be a lie, but who knows? Even Jiaying hadn't lied all the time, especially before she met Daisy..." he trailed away. 

"Problem?" Kara raised an eyebrow.

"For _someone_ ," Lincoln admitted. "Neither Coulson nor May are particularly happy with our relationship, though they don't try to interfere very much... In theory, they DO want us to be happy, in reality they have their misgivings-"

"Neither of you love each other," Kara spoke with a certainty that Lincoln didn't know that he felt. 

"May thinks that we're more in love with the idea of each other than with each other for real," Lincoln confessed. "She's right, yeah..."

"That's what I thought," Kara nodded sagely. "Right. Here we are. Shall we go in?" 

The pair stood at the entrance of a ruin, which was gaping wide and dark. Neither of the planetouched made the first move. "Maybe we should get more people involved?" Kara suggested brightly, nudging her new partner.

"Let's try something first," Lincoln suggested. "I mean, we did make a lot of noise to each other so that just quitting would be wrong, right?" He tentatively made a step forwards. Immediately, a very large snake raised its head from behind some cover and struck. Lincoln's reflexes weren't that great, but he was able to block it; the snake reared back, Lincoln struck...and somehow landed a hit: the reptile's head fell down onto the ground.

"That wasn't so hard," he commented to Kara, who just pointed at something else. Lincoln looked, and saw the smoking ruins of a second snake head: this was an amphisbaena instead. "Oh. Thanks?"

Kara exhaled. "Don't mention it." She looked down at the initial, non-smoking stump of a neck. "Bleep. I recognize the collar. This is Whitehall's doing, we're dealing with Nature's Scourge."

"I and the others have tangled with Whitehall and his crew," Lincoln pointed out in a 'reasonable' tone of voice. "This seems kind of small-scale for his style... yet."

"Maybe," Kara admitted, "but as you admitted, we did make a lot of noise. Shall we go in?"

The pair exchanged a look, took each other's hand and slowly made their way into the ruin.

**Author's Note:**

> In RPGs, genie-kin, or genasi, are races that have descended from genies or similar elemental beings, rather than 'outsiders'. Lincoln is a sylph - he got the element of air (Daisy - earth, and Grant - fire), so he can do electricity. Kara is a suli: she has descended from jann and doesn't have an elemental affinity: she got a bit of all four, but relatively weaker than the other genie-kin (who only got one). 
> 
> & a dragon turtle is a giant alligator snapping turtle that can breathe boiling steam and capsize vessels. Fun!


End file.
